Does the expulsion of illegal immigrants to a state affected by natural disaster violates international law?

Dėl pasaulyje vykstančių intensyvių klimato pokyčių valstybės vis dažniau nukenčia nuo stichinių nelaimių. Tarptautinėje bendruomenėje yra pripažinta, jog tokių nelaimių paveikta valstybė turi pareigą rūpintis jos teritorijoje nukentėjusiais asmenimis. Vis dėlto kartais pasitaiko situacijų, kai dėl didelio stichinės nelaimės masto valstybė nebesugeba pasirūpinti jos teritorijoje nuo stichinės nelaimės nukentėjusiais asmenimis. Tokiu atveju egzistuoja poreikis padėti nukentėjusiems asmenims ne tik nacionaliniu, bet ir tarptautiniu lygiu. Valstybės suverenitetas suteikia valstybėms teisę savarankiškai tvarkyti savo vidaus ir užsienio reikalus, ir tik tarptautinėje teisėje egzistuojantys įsipareigojimai gali apriboti šią teisę. Sparčiai augant stichinių nelaimių bei nuo jų nukentėjusių asmenų skaičiui, mokslininkams prognozuojant, jog jau šio šimtmečio viduryje dėl kylančio jūros lygio kai kurios valstybės dėl užlietų teritorijų gali nebesugebėti apgyvendinti visos jos teritorijoje esančios žmonių populiacijos arba visiškai „paskęsti“, susiduriant su pasauline praktika, kai valstybės pačios nebesugeba pasirūpinti jos teritorijoje nukentėjusiais asmenimis, kyla klausimas, ar nelegalių migrantų grąžinimas į valstybę, kurią yra ištikusi stichinė nelaimė, nepažeistų tarptautinės teisės? Šiame darbe iškelta hipotezė, jog tarptautinė teisė neužtikrina tinkamos nelegalių migrantų apsaugos stichinių nelaimių metu, šiems nelegaliai kirtus kitos valstybės sieną, patvirtinta. Tarptautinės teisės šaltiniuose nėra pateikta vieningos stichinės nelaimės apibrėžimo, todėl dažnai susiduriama su šios sąvokos skirtingomis interpretacijomis. Nors nelegalių migrantų apsaugą reglamentuojančiuose tarptautinės teisės aktuose yra įtvirtintas non-refoulement (negrąžinimo) principas, draudžiantis grąžinti asmenį atgal į valstybę, kur jam grėstų pavojus, tačiau įvairiose tarptautinėse sutartyse yra įtvirtintos skirtingos sąlygos bei kriterijai, kuriems esant būtų taikoma tarptautinė nelegalių migrantų apsauga. Stichinės nelaimės neatitinka nei vienos iš tarptautinėje teisėje privalomąją galią turinčios sutarties kriterijų, kuriems esant valstybė turėtų pareigą negrąžinti nelegalių migrantų atgal į jo kilmės valstybę. Tarptautinėje teisėje nesant griežtosios teisės reglamentavimo, pareiga padėti nuo stichinės nelaimės nukentėjusiems nelegaliems migrantams, atvykusiems į kitą valstybę, bei jų negrąžinti į stichinės nelaimės ištiktą kilmės valstybę egzistuoja daugiau kaip moralinė, o ne teisinė pareiga.The intensive climate change all over the world has led to a rapidly increasing number of countries, which suffer from natural disasters. The international community agrees that a country, which has been affected by a natural disaster, has a duty to take care of the people living in the territory. However, sometimes the scale of natural disasters is so big that a country is simply not capable of providing support to all the victims. In this case, there is a clear need to help the victims not only on national but also on international level. The sovereignty of a country gives it a right to self-manage both internal and foreign affairs. Besides, this right can only be restricted by the liabilities existing in the international law. Since the number of natural disasters and its victims is growing, the scientists state that, already in the middle of this century, the rising sea level may lead to enormous problems related to partly or entirely flood areas of some countries and, therefore, inability to accommodate the entire population of its territory. The global practise shows that sometimes countries are not capable of taking care of all the victims of its territory. So, the question is does the expulsion of illegal immigrants to a state affected by natural disaster violates international law? Taking into account the fact that the term “natural disaster” is an integral part of the concept “disaster” and in some legal sources the concept is not even separated, the first part of this Master thesis will mainly concentrate on the analysis of the definition of the term natural disaster. The comparison of this term and its definitions in different legal documents show that natural disaster is not a legal term and has different conceptions. The sources of international law do not provide a single definition of the term natural disaster; therefore, the interpretations of this term are rather different. In international law, there is no consensus on whether natural disaster should be considered only as natural event, which cause actual human, economic or physical loss, or the threat alone should be enough, if it can possibly cause the widespread loss of human lives, health problems, property and environmental damage. I have also made a conclusion that if a country, affected by a natural disaster, wants to receive either regional or international protection of its people, the natural disaster should cause serious public or community malfunctions, exceeding the ability of the community to cope with these problems by using its own available resources. The second part of this Master thesis identifies the main problems, scenarios and trends of people resettlement from the disaster zones. This part of the paper also identifies scenarios, which usually decide whether the scope of a natural disaster is sufficient to determine when the movement of people is voluntary and when forced; and assess the existing occupant protection system. It finally leads to the conclusion that the existing international law does not provide clear guidelines of how to deal with people affected by natural disasters, with people who cross the borders of other countries for sudden disasters, with people, who are transferred in their own territory or beyond, influenced by slowly moving disasters, with people, who leave the sinking islands / countries and cross the border of other countries, as well as with people, who move to live in other countries just because the situation in their homeland is too dangerous to live. The third part of this Master thesis is used to determine the rights and responsibilities of both the victim state and international community in the event of natural disaster. The analysis of various documents on human protection during such events reveals the fact that the victim country itself should take full responsibility to protect the inhabitants of its territory. It can also be stated that in case a victim country does not have any opportunities to provide people with help, it should ask help from competent international organizations, institutions and third parties. Regardless of the fact that the international law, regulating the protection of illegal migrants, includes the principle of non-refoulement, which does not allow to return person to a country where he would be in danger, but a great number of international contracts have different conditions and criteria which would also apply to the international protection of illegal migrants. Natural disasters do not meet any of the binding criteria of the international law, stating that a country is obliged not to return illegal migrants back to their country. As the international law has no strict legal regulation, there is more moral rather than legal duty for countries to provide support to the victims of natural disasters (illegal migrants who come to other countries seeking for help) and not to return them back. To sum up, this Master thesis mainly deals with the hypothesis that the international law does not guarantee proper protection of illegal migrants crossing borders of other countries in the event of natural disasters. Therefore, the hypothesis has been proven. However, as it is said by a Brazilian writer, songwriter and “peace announcer” of the United Nations Paulo Coelho: “There is nothing irreparable in the world. Even a dead clock shows the right time twice a day” . Taking into consideration the words of Paulo Coelho and the fact that in 2007, the UN International Law Commission has decided to include to its work agenda a new topic called “The protection of individuals in the time of disasters” as well as the statement that there have already been adopted 16 articles regulating the communication of countries during natural disasters, I truly believe that in the nearest future, there will be a mechanism to bind the host country to provide victims with an asylum until the day when the situation in their home country is stabilized and the country is capable of taking care of its citizens itself.Vytauto Didžiojo universiteta